For the fifth straight year, Company 3 took the Outstanding Color Grading-Commercial honor at the HPA Awards, the latest winner being colorist Tom Poole for Under Armour's "Brought To You By Under Armour." Poole's Company 3 colleague, Siggy Ferstl topped the spot colorist competition in 2012 (Chrysler's "Halftime in America:), 2011 (Nissan's "Zero"), and 2010 (AT&T's "Legends). In '09, colorist Stefan Sonnenfeld of Company 3 was the spot honoree (Pepsi's "Pass).
Joining Company 3's Poole in the 2013 HPA commercial category winners' circle during a gala awards ceremony this evening at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles were: Doobie White of Therapy Studios who topped the Outstanding Editing-Comercial category for Nextel/Ferrari's "Combustion"; an ensemble of artists at Framestore who took the VFX-Commercial honor on the strength of Galaxy's "Chauffeur"; and Anthony Moore of Factory for Outstanding Sound-Commercial on the basis of Honda's "Hands."
Features
William Goldenberg, A.C.E., likely thought his awards season was capped by the Best Editing Oscar earlier this year for Argo. However, Goldenberg's cutting of that Best Picture Oscar winner yielded another dividend months after the Academy Awards, taking the HPA Award for Outstanding Feature Film Editing.
Argo also garnered the HPA Award for Outstanding Sound in a theatrical motion picture. The winning quartet of artists consisted of Erik Aadahl, Ethan Van der Ryn, John Reitz and Gregg Rudloff of Warner Bros. Sound.
Another Oscar-winning film (for Best Director, VFX, Cinematography and Original Music Score), Life of Pi, took the HPA Award for Outstanding Color Grading. Colorist was David Cole of Technicolor.
And copping the HPA Award for Outstanding Visual Effects-Feature was Industrial Light & Magic for Pacific Rim.
TV
Game of Thrones was the big HPA Award winner in TV, topping a pair of categories–the show's "Valar Dohaeris" episode won for Outstanding Visual Effects-TV, the artists being Jorn Grosshans and Sven Martin of Pixomondo, and Doug Campbell of Spin VFX. Meanwhile "The Climb" episode of Game of Thrones earned Outstanding Sound-TV distinction. The winning sound ensemble from Todd AO included Tim Kimmel, Paula Fairfield, Brad Katona, Jed Dodge, Onnalee Blank and Mathew Waters.
Also coming up an HPA winner in TV were: colorist Anthony Smith of Encore for the "Hunt" episode ofCastle; and editor Skip Macdonald, A.C.E., for the "Dead Freight" episode of Breaking Bad.
Special honors
The HPA Awards gala was also highlighted by several special honors, including the Charles S. Swartz Award for Outstanding Contribution in the Field of Post Production, which was presented to Avid.
Leon Silverman, president of the Hollywood Post Alliance (HPA), commented, "From its founding days to the present, Avid has not only helped to lead our industry's transition to new, powerful digital creative tools, but has also expanded the creative image and sound postproduction palette in a way that has fundamentally enabled new creative abilities. Building on their strong heritage of innovation, it is exciting to see Avid's ongoing dedication to our community."
Recognized as a leading provider of audio and video technology for media organizations and content creators, Avid has a lineup of tools and products that are widely used by creative and media professionals around the world to make, distribute and monetize content. Avid led the revolution in non-linear editing over 25 years ago, irrevocably changing the way that creative projects were finished. Unveiling a prototype of their first non-linear editing system – the avid/I – at the 1988 NAB, within just a few years Avid's category-defining products began to dethrone traditional film editing. Non-linear digital editing came to be the predominant standard, and the company has continually exerted its influence through its extensive R&D, development of IP, and expansion into audio production, broadcast, and live sound. The company's products have been recognized with numerous industry and technology awards, including two Oscars, a Grammy, and 14 Emmys. The company holds over 200 patents.
Avid continues to develop crucial new technologies, and is at the forefront of helping an industry in rapid change, continually move forward. In September, the company announced "Avid Everywhere," its vision to connect creative professionals and media organizations with their audiences in a more powerful, efficient, collaborative, and profitable way. In a major move to broaden collaboration across its community of customers and industry partners, the company also announced the creation of the Avid Customer Association, a comprehensive initiative designed to provide essential strategic leadership to the media industry, collaborate with key industry leaders and visionaries, and deepen relationships between the company and its customers.
The award was named in honor of the late Charles S. Swartz, who led the Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California from 2002 until 2006, helping to build it into the industry's premier test bed for new digital cinema technologies. Swartz was a member of the Hollywood Post Alliance Board of Directors until his passing in 2007. The Charles S. Swartz Award is not bestowed every year, but rather only as worthy recipients are identified. Silverman concluded, "The mission of the Charles S Swartz Award is to recognize those efforts that have had profound and global impact on postproduction. Avid, throughout its 25-plus year history, has impacted our post production community so significantly that they indeed exemplify the meaning of this Award and so honor the memory of our friend and colleague Charles Swartz."
The HPA also honored the winners of the Engineering Excellence Award as well as the HPA Judges Award for Creativity and Innovation in Post Production. These prestigious Awards recognize the technical excellence and creative innovation that is helping to drive the post industry forward.
The winners of the HPA Engineering Excellence Award sponsored by NAB Show were:
• DTS, Inc. for
MDA, an open object-based audio specification currently being proposed to international standardization committees as an alternative to today's closed proprietary solutions. MDA has garnered support from major studios and networks looking to avoid another audio format war.
• NVIDIA
NVIDIA GRID Visual Computing Appliance (VCA). This turn-key appliance enables users to remotely run digital content creation applications on any Windows, Linux or Mac PC with high-performance NVIDA GPU acceleration even if their computer does not natively have that capability.
• Sony Pictures Imageworks and The Foundry
FLIX. a web-based visual story development tool that enables directors, editors, cinematographers, 2D and 3D tory artists to work together in one easy-to-use app.
• Telestream
16 bit 4:4:4:4 Transcoding Technology.
The winner of the HPA Judges Award for Creativity and Innovation in Post Production was:
• Park Road Post Production
Next Generation Feature Film Workflow: Enabling HFR 48FPS Stereoscopic 3D On Set to On Screen
Craft categories
Here's a full recap/rundown of the HPA Craft category winners:
Outstanding Color Grading – Sponsored by Dolby Laboratories
Outstanding Color Grading – Feature Film
Life of Pi
David Cole // Technicolor
Outstanding Color Grading – Television
Castle – "Hunt"
Anthony Smith // Encore
Outstanding Color Grading – Commercial
Under Armour "Brought To You By Under Armour"
Tom Poole // Company 3
Outstanding Editing – Feature Film
Argo
William Goldenberg, A.C.E.
Outstanding Editing – Television
Breaking Bad – "Dead Freight"
Skip Macdonald, A.C.E.
Outstanding Editing – Commercial
Nextel/Ferrari "Combustion"
Doobie White // Therapy Studios
Outstanding Sound – Feature Film
Argo
Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn
John Reitz and Gregg Rudloff // Warner Bros. Sound
Outstanding Sound – Television
Game of Thrones – "The Climb"
Tim Kimmel, Paula Fairfield, Brad Katona, Jed Dodge, Onnalee Blank and Mathew Waters // Todd AO
Outstanding Sound – Commercial
Honda "Hands"
Anthony Moore // Factory
Outstanding Visual Effects – Feature Film
Pacific Rim
Lindy DeQuattro, Eddie Pasquarello, Nigel Sumner, Derrick Carlin and Chris Lentz // Industrial Light & Magic
Outstanding Visual Effects – Television
Game of Thrones – "Valar Dohaeris"
Joe Bauer and Jabbar Raisani
Jörn Grosshans and Sven Martin // Pixomondo
Doug Campbell // Spin VFX
Outstanding Visual Effects – Commercial
Galaxy "Chauffeur"
Simon French, William Bartlett, Stephen Cullingford and Grant Walker // Framestore
Now in their eighth year, the HPA Awards were designed to draw attention to the creative work being done in post production by companies and individuals.
